


The Delicate Kind

by likeromeoandjuliet



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Curses, F/M, Vampire!Betty, Witches, human!jughead, i don't know where im going, my children love each other, pls like me, star crossed lovers you might say
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23974723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeromeoandjuliet/pseuds/likeromeoandjuliet
Summary: The way he loved her reminds her of her old life, she supposes. Carefree. Simple. Easy. As if loving her was breathing and he didn’t need to think twice about it. Her love was sweet and fast and dangerous, she thinks. Falling in love with him had been terrifying, as if it had always been clawing its way out of her and itching to fall onto his lips, into the warmth of his chest. She’d felt as if she were in Paris when she fell for him, during one of those beautiful intoxicating nights she’d lived. Euphoric, otherworldly, beyond her own understanding.Because how could a monster like her hold such humanity to her chest? How could she love so deeply?The answer, perhaps, is because he could.***Based on this Drabble: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23701135/chapters/57262828
Relationships: Betty Cooper & Jughead Jones, Betty Cooper/Jughead Jones
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34
Collections: 7th Bughead Fanfiction Awards - Nominees





	The Delicate Kind

_When I look out my window_   
_Many sights to see_   
_And when I look in my window_   
_So many different people to be_   
_That it's strange, so strange_   
_It's very strange to me_

**Season of the Witch, Donovan Leitch**

_***_

Our story begins in the 1920s, in the so called ‘Roaring Twenties’, of parties and jazz and a need to live life to the fullest after the war. The tingling alertness that made you want to rest assured that if you died tomorrow, if there was another war to come, if Paris were to be bombed the next day, you’d lived this night. With the prohibition era happening in the USA, flocks of people made their way to the city of love to live out those nights. The sublime, magical nights you wish never ended. She’d laughed with Fitzgerald, danced with Zelda as Josephine sang. Picasso was an asshole. Magritte could be sweet. Dali was a goddamned fascist, and Hemingway was a depressed drunk who would bore you till morning. You’d never believe the things she’d seen, the nights she’d lived. 

Unbeknownst to her at the time, champagne glass in her hand, hair in a bob as modern fashion smiled upon, looking like a fine old flapper with a beaded dress and a cigarette holder hanging from her mouth, she’d live to see many more decades. Though ‘live’ wasn’t exactly a term she’d ever use. What was her bubbly, what some may call bearcat, persona would be soon be overshadowed by a darkness she never knew existed before. 

Sometime between 2 AM and 5 AM, Elizabeth Cooper, then Smith, bid her goodbyes, blowing kisses to the kind bartender who had smiled at her all night, the friends she’d made in the previous hour and had gone out of the speakeasy she’d spent the night in and into the streets of Paris. 

Sometime between 2 AM and 5 AM, Elizabeth Smith vanished into thin air, never to be heard of ever again. What the streets witnessed, they never spoke of it, never streets to tell secrets, only to see them and to keep them. Friends wondered, others mourned, one night only lovers cried and her wealthy family all the way across the pond was left broken. 

Elizabeth Smith died that same night, at the hands of a monster. And in that death, she found a frozen life. Her heart stopped beating and for a few long days, her mind couldn’t seem to take interest in anything other than thirst. 

“ _There, there, child, all will be better soon.”_

She couldn’t tell what she was, all she felt was that everything was different. How she moved. How she smelled. How she heard. She heard birds miles away, even some electrical wire loose somewhere, wasting energy. And a throbbing pain all over her body, as if her nerves were burning, altering, transforming into something else, something stronger. As if it were kicking something out. Life perhaps. Perhaps something else. 

The scream escaped her before she has any chance to control. She couldn’t formulate thoughts to control anything. There were restraints on her ankles and on her hands. The scream is animal like, uncontrolled feral. But there was a cold hand on her forehead.

“ _Stop fighting it, darling.”_

There’s no way to tell how long it’d been, how many days, how many weeks, but it only took a second for peace to settle her body. Like cold water on a burn, instant relief in a second. She knew she was alone in the room, but it a matter of an hour before two people walked in to sit by her bed. 

“ _Darling?”_

Her eyes were open wide and she was certain she could see better, see closer, focus on details she’d never been able to before. Every nerve on her body on high alert. The strangeness of her surrounds combined with all that was happening made her think she’d been kidnapped but the sudden strength she felt told her it was something else. 

“ _Who are you?”_

_“We’re the ones who helped you, sugar.”_ The woman’s voice was sweet, though her eyes were a brighter color than she’s ever seen before. Skin pale, untouched. The woman was older than her but she seemed so still, so serene, so unnerved by everything. _“You see, there was an ugly sickness ravaging your body and we couldn’t stand to watch a pretty thing like you, so full of life, waste away.”_

_“Sickness? I’m not sick.”_

_“It’d only take a few months. I felt it. Death taking over you.”_

_“What did you do to me?”_

A myth. There were many folk tales. She’d read gory stories of evil bloodsucking creatures that roamed the streets, preyed on the innocent and took the life out of unsuspecting people. 

They’d turned her into a monster. Someone who needed, who thirsted for blood. Simply because they had felt a sickness that hadn’t even manifested yet. They had ‘saved her’, they thought, but all they did was doom her to a life of sleepless eternity. A frozen heart. Frozen age. All of her. Dead. No life. No blood in her veins. All that was left for her to do was feed and live through decades. A monster, a hallow monster.

She’d ran from her creators the minute she was free. And she’d lived many lives. She figured out a system. The life of a college freshman. The life of a high school student. Simple jobs. Normal jobs. Normal lives. She’d travelled to many places, figured out how long she could stay there. People bought it for 8 to 10 years and then it’d be suspicious that she never got old. She’d evolved with the world and learned that was normal for the time she was born in began to lose its flair. 

And along the way, she met the Blossoms/Coopers. They’d taken her in. It was better to be in a pack than to be out in the world alone, she’d learned. She’d been with them since the 1945. She’d met them during the War on a gruesome night just as the Allies bombed Berlin. They’d ran together, away from the war, from the violence and she found something that made her feel closer to her own humanity. A family.

The Blossoms and the Coopers were some of the oldest vampire families in world. Their existence dating back centuries, some might even call them royalty. The paintings proved that the clan had always been resourceful. Always living with the elite of the world, hiding in plain sight. In the past, it had allowed them to move more freely, it gave them money and possessions. With the times changing, a good fortune in their pockets, they decided they had to be further away from places of power. Instead opting for normal jobs, secluded places and places where people didn’t ask too many questions. 

“Another small town, another life. Lovely that we can use our actual names now.” Cheryl grins, sitting on the edge of the roof. Betty looks up, as she steps out of the car. “I truly hated Francesca.” 

“How’s the view?” Betty asks. “Anything worth mentioning?” 

“Mmmh, an old diner. Very retro.” As Cheryl responds, Betty climbs up expertly without any effort. “Feels very all American, this town, cousin dearest.” 

“Unsure whether that’s good or bad, Cher.” Betty comments, sitting beside her. 

“Lighten up, Elizabeth.” The red head murmurs, with a sigh. “Remind me what’s our story again.”

With an eye roll, Betty lies down on the roof. “Big city family moves to a small town to start fresh.” She announces. “Alice and Hal now own the local newspaper, Polly’s a nurse and I’m an aspiring writer, spending my days wandering and brooding, also at the newspaper.” Cheryl lets out a small laugh, lying beside her. “And your ‘mother’ bought a maple farm with your ‘father’. You work there, so does Jason. Turns out maple syrup is quite profitable. We’re helping the town grow, expand. And that about covers it.”

“We’re living tedious lives.” Cheryl notes. “Naturally, I know we have to. But my, Elizabeth, you danced in Paris with beautiful people and drank and sang and laughed, had paintings made of you and poems written. And I lived with some of the most powerful people in the world. Kings and Queens and Ladies and Dukes and I even bedded some of them.” She appears to be lost in a daze of memories. “And now we’re doomed to live these mediocre lives. A tragedy.”

Betty looks up at the sky, so vast, so immense. She wishes she could feel the freedom the sky holds. All she’d done for the past decades of her undead life had been to move along as time moved past her. She’d seen the world; she’d learned too much of everything and she’d always felt as though her soul existed elsewhere. Emptiness as she experienced the world through different people. Part time lovers here and there, friends she couldn’t trust and a need for something more. Something that made her feel closer to who she used to be. Something that made her feel alive.

She hadn’t expected that to be _him_. Of all that she knew of life, after all that she’d lived, he’d blindsided her. Bursting through, claiming her world as his, her heart.

The way he loved her reminds her of her old life, she supposes. Carefree. Simple. Easy. As if loving her was breathing and he didn't need to think twice about it. Her love was sweet and fast and dangerous, she thinks. Falling in love with him had been terrifying, as if it had always been clawing its way out of her and itching to fall onto his lips, into the warmth of his chest. She'd felt as if she were in Paris when she fell for him, during one of those beautiful intoxicating nights. Euphoric, otherworldly, beyond her own understanding.

She'd seen him around town. And she'd watched him for what she thinks was half an hour before they spoke the first time, perhaps more but it'd been decades since she cared about the time spent on things. It wasn't as though it was all unusual to watch people, for her. She'd spent plenty of time watching. Watching carefully told you more about people than talking to them ever would.

Jughead Jones was, however, a bit of a mystery. She'd been sitting in the Riverdale public library, trying to write and he'd been puttering around. Roaming the mystery and fantasy section, never really picking anything out, just cruising up and down the aisle. She couldn't tell much about him other than his obvious liking of mystery novels. Perhaps that was the point, the mystery of what they would become.

The sound of his footsteps behind her don't make her turn around. "Do you mind if I sit here?"

She looks at him. "Sure."

He sits down, going around the table to sit in front of her, with a book in his hand and opens it up, starting to read it as she tries to write down words at a normal human speed. "You've been watching me."

She looks up from her notebook, amused look on her face. "It's quite draining. You spent half an hour picking a book, when I'm pretty sure you knew what you wanted to read."

He snorts. "You know, that may be considered creepy behavior...?"

"Elizabeth Cooper." She responds.

His eyes light up. "You’re new in town. The old house by Sweetwater River, right?" He asks and she nods. Leaning in close, there’s a mischievous grin on his face. “You know, some people say it’s haunted.”

“You don’t say?” She smirks. “I’ll let you know if it’s true. I’ve always loved a good ghost story.” She lowers her voice and there’s a pause in the conversation.

He stares at her intently, looking into her eyes as if searching for something. Pupils dilating, sending a shockwave to her core. “You have very captivating eyes, Elizabeth Cooper.” She hears his heartbeat quicken as he looks at her, the blood flowing through his veins on his neck and she almost imagines biting him before catching herself. She hasn’t had thirst for blood in ages, she’d controlled it, she wasn’t a young vampire anymore. You get used to all the different scents, the different urges and unless you haven’t fed in a while, things are under control. But this, him, the inexplicable pull, an invisible thread pulling her closer. She’s been around enough to know she was feeling thirst, but also lust. A dangerous combination. “Would go on a date with me?”

She breathes out in a way she hasn’t in a while, wondering how she let herself be caught in his eyes. “We’ve just met.” She argues. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Jughead.” He adds quickly. “Now you know.”

“You’re going to have to work harder, Jughead.” She smiles, before gathering her notebook and standing from her chair.

“That wasn’t a no!” He calls out as she walks away from him. The smile that falls upon her lips startles her.

What was it about such a simple interaction that made her feel so much? So ordinary, so human and like so many others she’d seen and lived. Years later, she’ll say it was his eyes and the way she could see the inkling of something else underneath it. Beyond the normalcy. Was it pain? The same pain she’s always felt scratching her soul from the moment she was turned? Or perhaps something deeper? A connection? The moment in time two kindred spirits meet, soulmates across the same timeline. She’d once laughed at the preposterous assumption that they could exist, but perhaps…perhaps she’d been wrong.

Perhaps she’d trust the poets this one time.

***

And the poets had been right. When they spoke of fated lovers and unimaginable feelings at the very first sight of someone, the unmistakable strength of what some don’t believe in. They were also right about tragedy, about pain, about how some lovers are just doomed to ill fates.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, fellow humans! Greetings! As many people enthusiastically suggested, here is the first chapter of the Vampire AU! I'm not sure how much I like how this first chapter turned out but instead of making myself crazy questioning, I've decided to post it! So, here we are! More to come!
> 
> Tell me what you guys think!


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